BGR also decidedly seems to be Apple fanboys, too - I used to avidly read their site every day for years. The hilarious thing about the article is that it seems to be nothing they themselves have investigated personally but rather just stuff they gleaned from reading someone else’s online posts!

There are some odd things, as there always are with version x.0 releases. Since my iPhone is my EDC thanks to HAs, My P2XL is test phone (was hoping for ASHA for the last year, but ain’t gonna happen). There are two builds for the Pixel 2 XL, QP1A.190711.019 and QP1A.190711.020, but no info on the two.

Most people think one is for Google unlocked phones and the other for carrier specific phones, but no documentation yet. Reports I saw most were most getting the .020 version, so I was downloading that from the Android Factory Image repository to fastboot flash with the Android Debug Bridge program.
While downloading, the toast about the OTA update popped up on my Pixel, so I just accepted that (I usually ADB sideload all the monthly security updates).

When it finished, I found I had version ending in .019. My guess is because this phone has no SIM card now that I got that one instead of 0.20. Who knows? I’ll just watch the circus and wait for iOS 13 with the wonderful system wide Dark Mode for my iThing.